Keyword: influenza

(English translation) Given the alarming number of persons infected with the disease, Health Secretary Ana Rius declared yesterday that Puerto Rico is facing an influenza epidemic. The decree was released given the number of cases reported in January which totaled 3,124, a figure very close to the one reported for the last six months of 2014. Most of the hospitalized patients have been pregnant women, children under 19, and elderly, [which are] the highest-risk populations. In fact, an 85-year-old woman already died of the disease. Along with the declaration, the Secretary signed an administrative order for health-insurance companies to cover...

Hospitals and medical centers in western Colorado are limiting visitors because of a serious flu outbreak. ... The Veterans Affairs Medical Center's community living center still is not accepting visitors after 11 patients showed signs of having the flu. All of those patients will remain in isolation until two or three days after the last one recovers. The Centers for Disease Control said influenza has reached epidemic proportions. There have been 15 pediatric deaths nationwide

<p>A deadly influenza strain has the U.S. in the grip of what could develop into a "severe" flu season, with widespread cases already reported in 36 states, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert said Tuesday.</p>
<p>The H3N2 strain, the most common flu virus this season, began mutating shortly after U.S. health experts created this year's vaccine -- rendering it less effective compared to past flu vaccines, Dr. Michael Jhung, a medical officer with the CDC's influenza division, told FoxNews.com.</p>

A sampling of flu cases so far this season suggests the current flu vaccine may not be a good match for the most common seasonal flu strain currently circulating in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The U.S. health agency issued an advisory to doctors noting that flu virus samples the agency took from Oct. 1 through Nov. 22, showed that just under half were a good match for the current influenza A (H3N2) component contained in flu shots for the 2014-2015 season, suggesting the virus has drifted. According to the CDC,...

I have a joke about Ebola, but you probably won’t get it. Seriously though, everyone and their dog is freaking out about Ebola reaching the U.S. I get it. I really truly do. Any deadly disease is scary, but Ebola is super-duper scary. Anything that causes 70 percent of people who catch it to die counts as super-duper scary in my book. Thing is, you won’t catch it. I won’t catch it. According to NPR, Ebola isn’t contagious until after symptoms are present. On top of that, it is only spread through bodily fluids like blood, vomit and other things...

Chinese researchers have discovered what they say is the first ‘virological penicillin’ – MIR2911, a molecule found naturally in a Chinese herb called honeysuckle. Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is a well-known Chinese herb. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it has been used to effectively treat influenza infection for centuries. Several previous studies have confirmed that the herb, usually consumed in the form of a tea, can suppress the replication of influenza virus. However, the active anti-viral components and the mechanism by which they block viral replication have remained unclear. Now, a team of researchers headed by Dr Chen-Yu Zhang of Nanjing University...

ST. LOUIS • On Oct. 5, 1918, the city health department issued this warning: “Avoid persons with colds.” Dr. Max C. Starkloff, health commissioner, knew that wasn’t nearly enough. Two days later, with Mayor Henry Kiel’s strong backing, he issued an emergency order closing schools, theaters, pool halls, playgrounds and other public places. The strategy was known as “social distancing,” and the motive was to fight the Spanish flu that was sweeping the world. The misnamed influenza would kill many more people than the ghastly meat-grinder known as the Great War. The order was extreme, but it worked — St....

A panel of infectious diseases experts this morning expressed far more grave concerns for Americans about the risks of flu and enterovirus D68 than for Ebola virus disease. That’s noteworthy because the group included Bruce Ribner, MD, MPH, the Emory University Hospital doctor who led the team that successfully treated two Ebola-infected medical missionaries, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol. Infectious diseases caregivers and public health professionals are gathered in Philadelphia through the weekend for the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), more commonly known as IDWeek 2014. (You can also follow attendees in real-time on...

Researchers have found a deadly strain of the avian influenza virus that has been sweeping through harbor seals may be able to spread to humans. That's according to a study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. The study, led by investigators from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, details how an avian H3N8 virus strain that had killed more than 160 seals along the New England coast back in 2011 boasted specific characteristics that allowed it to be easily spread through respiratory droplets and made it a potential threat for human infection.

SHELBY COUNTY, TN - (WMC) - With concerns over the spreading Enterovirus, Shelby County health leaders are also preparing for a possible outbreak of the flu. October is about the time of year that doctors start seeing more flu cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is why the emergency room at Regional Medical Center and more than a dozen Mid-South hospitals will be packed with fake patients on Wednesday. High school and medical reserve corps volunteers will be transported in masses to at least 18 Mid-South hospitals, all with fake flu symptoms. The Shelby County Health Department...

Deadly Flu Outbreak: Is History Repeating Itself?An out-of-control outbreak of influenza which has killed as many as 700 people and felled almost 23,000 victims is ravaging Madagascar and health authorities fear that if the disease is not confined to the huge island it could spread around the world. Madagascar which is larger than France and has a population of 16 million people is located off southeast Africa. World Health Organization (WHO) officials have said that samples taken from victims of the illness have shown it to be Type A influenza, a strain of flu believed to have devastated the world...

After back-to-back potentially serious laboratory accidents, federal health officials announced on Friday that they had closed the flu and anthrax laboratories of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and have halted shipments of all infectious agents from the agency’s highest-security labs. The accidents, and the C.D.C.'s emphatic response to them, could have important implications for other laboratories around the world engaged in research into dangerous viruses and bacteria. If the C.D.C — which the agency’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, called “the reference laboratory to the world” — had multiple accidents that could have, in theory, killed not just laboratory...

A 15-year-old girl is reportedly falling asleep up to 30 times a day after getting a flu shot. Australia’s News Limited reports Chloe Glasson began suffering from narcolepsy four months after being injected with Pandemrix, a vaccine to combat against swine flu, in November 2009. She is one of at least 100 people to suffer from the sleeping disorder after getting vaccinated with Pandemrix. “She has gone from being a bright, outgoing girl to one who cannot go out on her own,” Rebecca Glasson, Chloe’s mother, told News Limited. “She doesn’t doze for more than a couple of hours at...

Autism advocates are set to protest tomorrow against a quiet effort by Mayor Michael Bloombergâ€™s administration to require annual flu vaccinations for all New York City schoolchildren.On Wednesday, with just three weeks to go until he leaves office, Mr. Bloombergâ€™s controversial Board of Health is set to vote on new rules that would force children as young as six months old to be immunized each year before December 31 if they attend licensed day care or pre-school programs.â€śYoung children have a high risk of developing severe complications from influenza. One-third of children under five in New York City do not...

A new “Holy Grail” flu vaccine which gives lifelong protection against all strains of the virus could be available within five years. Scientists from Britain and Europe are getting ready to start large-scale trials of a universal vaccine after early tests on humans proved successful. If all goes to plan, the new injection would stop the need for annual flu jabs and could save thousands of lives every year. It could also be effective against highly dangerous forms of the disease, such as Spanish flu, even if they mutate, preventing global pandemics like the one which killed 100 million people...

LONDON - The first scientific analysis of probable human-to-human transmission of a deadly new strain of bird flu that emerged in China this year gives the strongest evidence yet that the H7N9 virus can pass between people, scientists said on Wednesday. Research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) analyzing a family cluster of cases of H7N9 infection in eastern China found it was very likely the virus "transmitted directly from the index patient (a 60-year-old man) to his daughter." Experts commenting on the research said while it did not necessarily mean H7N9 is any closer to becoming the next...

Half of flu cases arise when people inhale tiny particles that float in the air, an international group of researchers reports June 4 in Nature Communications. The finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds that nearly all influenza spreads by large droplets that sick people release when they sneeze or cough. Those large droplets, the theory went, get on people’s hands and transmit the virus from there. While scientists knew that small particles called aerosols represent possible routes of disease spread, they thought that cases almost never arise that way. Public health officials say that knowing how...

It's time for the world's public health officials to pay very close attention to the new bird flu outbreak in China first detected in March. To put it bluntly, there are now some seriously dangerous developments occurring around the new disease outbreak in China that infectious disease specialists and international public health specialists need to track closely. Let's start with three new developments reported on earlier this week by Jason Koebler, U.S. News & World Report's science and technology correspondent: the first reported case of the new bird flu strain outside China; the fact that any potential vaccine tests in...

AFP - Taiwan on Wednesday reported the first case of the H7N9 bird flu outside of mainland China. The 53-year-old man, who had been working in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, showed symptoms three days after returning to Taiwan via Shanghai, the Centers for Disease Control said, adding that he had been hospitalised since April 16 and was in a critical condition. A passenger (right) has her temperature checked by a Centers for Disease Control staff member at the entrance of Sungshan Airport in Taipei on April 4, 2013. Taiwan on Wednesday reported the first case of the H7N9...

Around the world, scientists are now beginning to examine samples of the virus with a significant question in mind: Could this strain of the disease cause a global pandemic? This international network of scientists keeps constant watch for good reason. In 1918 and 1919, a flu pandemic killed between 20 million and 40 million people, more than the total death toll of World War I, more in a year than the Black Death of 1347 to 1351. More recently, an H1N1 swine flu pandemic was blamed for more than 284,500 human deaths worldwide between April 2009 and August 2010. So...

Experts are puzzled by a new study in which influenza vaccination seemed to provide little or no protection against flu in the 2010-11 seasonâ€”and in which the only participants who seemed to benefit from the vaccine were those who hadn't been vaccinated the season before. The investigators recruited 328 households in Michigan before the flu season started and followed them through the season. Overall, they found that the infection risk was nearly the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated participants, indicating no significant vaccine-induced protection, according to their report in Clinical Infectious Diseases. That contrasted sharply with several other observational studies...

An international team of researchers has developed a new class of anti-flu drug that could prevent new virus strains developing resistance and help control future pandemics while more effective vaccines are prepared. Each year, flu viruses cause up to five million cases of severe illness worldwide, resulting in up to 500 000 deaths.The preferred drug treatments for flu – neuraminidase inhibitors including Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir) – treat infection by stopping the viral surface enzyme neuraminidase from interacting with its natural substrate, sialic acid. It is this interaction that releases the virus from an infected cell and allows it...

ATLANTA (AP) — It turns out this year's flu shot is doing a startlingly dismal job of protecting older people, the most vulnerable age group. The vaccine is proving only 9 percent effective in those 65 and older against the harsh strain of the flu that is predominant this season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Health officials are baffled as to why this is so. But the findings help explain why so many older people have been hospitalized with the flu this year.

An international group of scientists this week ended a year-long moratorium on controversial work to engineer potentially deadly strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the lab. Researchers agreed to temporarily halt the work in January 2012, after a fierce row erupted over whether it was safe to publish two papers reporting that the introduction of a handful of mutations enabled the H5N1 virus to spread efficiently between ferrets, a model of flu in mammals (see Nature http://doi.org/fxv55r; 2012). Both papers were eventually published, one in Nature1 and one in Science2. Now, in a letter simultaneously published on 23...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here's a headline from CNBC: "Major Flu Outbreak Threatens to Slow the Economy Further." Now, what the hell kind of headline is this? "Major Flu Outbreak Threatens to Slow the Economy Further." It was just yesterday I was talking about media propagandists, and you see this headline, and you have to understand that I know what I'm talking about and I was right. The flu threatens to slow the economy further? Really? They're throwing that out there now? We know that it's not the flu slowing down the economy! We know it's not the flu that has...

Hospitals across the country are being stretched for service as this year’s flu season looks to be the most intense in nearly a decade, with facilities beginning to turn patients away because of the danger that it could spread through their staffs. Thirty-nine states and New York City have reported significant levels of influenza-like-illnesses as medical professionals are reminded of the 2003-2004 season when more than 40,000 people died because the predominant strain was so dissimilar from the vaccine that year, reported Fox News. Hospital officials have described the season so far as “chaotic.” Doctors are telling patients to begin...

<p>Seven Chicago-area hospitals have had to send ambulances elsewhere this morning as they deal with an influx of patients with flu-like symptoms.</p>
<p>As of 9:45 a.m., the hospitals remained on bypass status, which means their emergency rooms are at capacity and non-critical patients are being re-routed to other hospitals, said Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health...</p>

The U.S. has been hit with a particularly aggressive early flu season this year with widespread reports of the illness across the country, hospitalizing 2,257 people and leaving 18 children dead before the end of 2012. And health officials say the numbers haven't even peaked yet. 'I think we're still accelerating,' Tom Skinner, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman, told reporters.

Enlarge Image New approach. The new vaccine does not use the two proteins on the flu virus's surface, shown here as blue and red spikes, but mRNA encoding one of them. Credit: CDC A new vaccine strategy could make flu shots cheaper, safer, and easier to produce. Using synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) instead of proteins purified from viruses, German scientists have shown they can protect mice, ferrets, and pigs against influenza. "This is a very interesting new approach," says Hans-Dieter Klenk, a virologist at the University of Marburg in Germany who was not involved in the work. Now, most...

Data Published in Nature Biotechnology Show Messenger (m)RNA Prophylactic Vaccines Based on CureVac's RNActive® Technology Demonstrate Immunogenicity and Protection Against Influenza Virus Infection -- RNActive Vaccine Technology Allows Fast Production in Response to a Pandemic Scenario -- RNActive Vaccines Are Stable at High Temperatures Which Makes Them Suitable for Easy Worldwide Supply -- RNActive Vaccines May Become a Novel, Broadly Applicable and Easy-to-Handle Prophylactic Class of Vaccine Against Infectious Diseases TUEBINGEN, Germany, Nov. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CureVac GmbH, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of therapies and vaccines based on mRNA, and the German Federal Research...

Last year's flu shot won't shield you this year: Two new strains of influenza have begun circling the globe, and the updated vaccine appears to work well against them, government officials said Thursday. [snip] Influenza strains constantly evolve, and some cause more illness than others. "...strains from the H3N2 family tend to be harsher than some other flu types, and a new H3N2 strain is included in this year's vaccine because it is circulating in parts of the world. Only one ingredient in this year's flu vaccine was retained from last year's, protection against the H1N1 strain that caused the...

Severe influenza doubles the odds that a person will develop Parkinson's disease later in life, according to University of British Columbia researchers. However, the opposite is true for people who contracted a typical case of red measles as children – they are 35 per cent less likely to develop Parkinson's. Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-severe-flu-parkinson.html#jCp

We've seen promising moves towards developing a universal or near-universal influenza vaccine, but researchers at the Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center have taken a different tack to ward of the crafty virus. Although the flu virus actively keeps the immune system from detecting it for a few days, giving it time to gain a foothold, the researchers have found that a powerful synthetic protein, known as EP67, can kick start the immune system so that it reacts almost immediately to all strains of the virus. Previously, EP67 had primarily been used to help activate the immune response by being added...

Air Leak Sparks Safety Fears at CDC Bioterror Lab CDC's Emerging Infectious Disease Lab has experienced repeated problems with airflow systems The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency charged with preventing the spread of infectious diseases has come under attack today for "serious" airflow problems in an Atlanta building that houses anthrax, SARS and monkeypox. Documents and emails obtained by USA Today suggest that a poorly engineered airflow system in the CDC's Building 18 could expose unprotected staff and visitors to dangerous airborne pathogens. "As the door closed a very noticeable puff of air could be felt...

Expert unease over deadly flu virus 'created' in Dutch laboratory Friday 25 November 2011 Dutch scientists have created a flu virus which is so deadly there is doubt about whether the research should be published, the Volkskrant reports on Friday. The paper says American experts are worried detailed information could fall into the wrong hands and that terrorists could recreate the virus as a weapon. The fears are notable because the work was carried out on behalf of the National Institutes of Health in the US. The research team, led by Ron Fouchier, professor of virology at Erasmus teaching hospital,...

A group of scientists is pushing to publish research about how they created a man-made flu virus that could potentially wipe out civilisation. The deadly virus is a genetically tweaked version of the H5N1 bird flu strain, but is far more infectious and could pass easily between millions of people at a time. The research has caused a storm of controversy and divided scientists, with some saying it should never have been carried out.

A natural lipid in the fluid lining the lungs inhibits influenza infections in both cell cultures and mouse models, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. These findings, combined with previous studies demonstrating effectiveness against respiratory syncytial virus, suggest that the molecule, known as POPG, may have broad antiviral activity. “Supplemental POPG could be an important, inexpensive and novel approach for the prevention and treatment of influenza and other respiratory virus infections,” said Dennis Voelker, PhD, Professor of Medicine, and senior author in the report, published online in the American journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.

Bird flu and human flu could merge into 'one of biggest biological threats of our time', warn scientists A new deadly strain of super-flu could spread to Britain within 24 hours, experts have warned. The potential for bird flu and human flu to combine and form a new virus has been described as 'one of the biggest biological threats of our time'. The alert comes as people have started to fall victim to seasonal flu and the more virulent swine flu at the same time, according to the Daily Express.

People carrying extra pounds may need extra protection from influenza. New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that obesity may make annual flu shots less effective. The findings, published online Oct. 25, 2011, in he International Journal of Obesity, provide evidence explaining a phenomenon that was noticed for the first time during the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak: that obesity is associated with an impaired immune response to the influenza vaccination in humans. "These results suggest that overweight and obese people would be more likely than healthy weight people to experience flu illness following exposure to...

UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu. "I was amazed that virtually every pig in this village was exposed," said Thomas B. Smith, director of UCLA's Center for Tropical Research and the senior author of the research. "Africa is ground zero for a new pandemic. Many people are in poor health there, and disease can spread very rapidly without authorities knowing...

Examination of lung tissue and other autopsy material from 68 American soldiers who died of respiratory infections in 1918 has revealed that the influenza virus that eventually killed 50 million people worldwide was circulating in the United States at least four months before the 1918 influenza reached pandemic levels that fall. The study, using tissues preserved since 1918, was led by Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers found proteins and genetic material from the 1918 influenza virus in specimens from 37 of...

Two teams of federal and university scientists announced today that they had resurrected the 1918 influenza virus, the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, and had found that unlike the viruses that caused more recent flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968, the 1918 virus was actually a bird flu that jumped directly to humans. The work, being published in the journals Nature and Science, involved getting the complete genetic sequence of the 1918 virus, using techniques of molecular biology to synthesize it, and then using it to infect mice and human lung cells in a specially equipped, secure...

The joke that's going around is that the Mayans got it wrong: The world is ending this year, not 2012. Here's the lates sign of that. A superbug is spreading around America, and has hit Southern California. LA Times: A dangerous drug-resistant bacterium has spread to patients in Southern California, according to a study by Los Angeles County public health officials. More than 350 cases of the Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP, have been reported at healthcare facilities in Los Angeles County, mostly among elderly patients at skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities, according to a study by Dr. Dawn Terashita,...

How can this happen in 2011? I was just talking with him 3 weeks ago about possibly going bass fishing with him in Mexico this Spring. Seems he checked into the hospital about a week ago complaining of respiratory troubles after contracting the flu. They released him shortly after. He posted on his Facebook page at that time about how it sucks being sick, and how good it would be just to walk 20 feet without gasping for breath. 2 days later, hie son and ex-wife found him dead in bed. I am stunned. He was in good health. No...

Convalescent plasma therapy—using plasma from patients who have recovered from an infection to treat those with the same infection—has been used to treat multiple diseases. However, the efficacy of this treatment in patients with severe 2009 H1N1 influenza is unknown. A study published in the February 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that convalescent plasma may reduce the death rate in patients severely ill with this type of influenza. (Please see below for a link to the embargoed study online.) From September 2009 through June 2010, patients from a hospital cluster in Hong Kong with severe 2009 H1N1 infection...

Intensive care units across Britain are almost full as the NHS faces one of the worst flu outbreaks in a decade. Some hospitals have only one or two life-support machines left and critically ill patients are being transferred by ambulance to other trusts.... >snip< Senior doctors report that they are seeing the highest number of flu cases in more than 20 years and expect the situation to worsen over the coming weeks.

[EMBARGOED FOR JAN. 5, 2011] For those infected with the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus, extreme obesity was a powerful risk factor for death, according to an analysis of a public health surveillance database. In a study to be published in the February 1, 2011, issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers associated extreme obesity with a nearly three-fold increased odds of death from 2009 H1N1 influenza. Half of Californians greater than 20 years of age hospitalized with 2009 H1N1 were obese. (Please see below for a link to the study online.) Data from 500 adults hospitalized with H1N1 in...